Hong
Kong
January
12 - 15, 2001 Written by Aaron
So we sent our main Asian liaison, Mark Decker, an email saying that we might be going to Hong Kong to do a little shopping. The Americans had we met in the Maldives said that prices were cheap there, and we had to replace our camera. So far we had had four cameras, but only two worked & none were taking very good pictures! Here is a snippet from the actual email from Mark Decker which convinced us to go:
You must go to Hong Kong!!!!!!! It will be the best two days of your life...when you confirm I willgive you the whole deal.....Best of all my best friend is there and will sort you out on all electronic stuff he is the techno master.....not a good chance that you could stay with him( 2 kids but I will sort you on the room as well .....there is a place like the y mca for about 60-90 bucks a night and is sweet!!!!! make sure you do at least 2 nights and three long days...Great city!!!!!!!!!!
After reading that, we had to go! He later gave us some more info! Once again, Mark Decker saved our lives. Here is email that set our trip up:
just want to jot some stuff down for hk before i forget
1) the peak cafe take the
tram from the base of hk park right next to the recreation center
2) the star ferry
3) Kublai kahn's restaurant
4) japanese restaurant on 3rd floor of 1st building on left of
mcdonnel road( just 50 yds above the peak tram entrance) this
was the road we lived on for a few years
5) american peking restaurant in wanchai lockhart road a Chinese
favorite....
6) taking a bus to Stanley market is fun cause get to see the
island and stanley is a cool little town( get a sweet air con
bus)
7) take the MTR anywhere just won't believe how crisp it is
8) great American food go to dan ryan's in pacific place mall
9) electronics and copy computer stuff my friend tom gordon will
sort you out with
We accomplished numbers 2, 3, 6, 7, 8 and 9. Not bad!!! But here is the blow by blow account of our trip.
On January 12, a week after leaving India, we got on a plane for Hong Kong. It was odd to leave the Lakepoint in Bangkok, but they kept a bag for us, gave us the salute as we left, and we knew we would be back. I had to rent more VCD's!
Upon reaching Hong Kong, India was still very much with us! People wanted to help us, and we immediately thought they wanted money. But this was Hong Kong, where Capitalism shed its mask and danced naked throughout the neon streets. If you want to get a feel of Hong Kong, rent the John Woo movie HARDBOILED. It is my favorite action movie, and the scenery was taken directly from the mecca of merchandise! The Chinese were very wise to take it over and not change a thing. In Bangkok you could feel the sex that flooded throughout the city, but in Hong Kong, it was all about money. If it don't make dollars, it don't make sense! Right off the plane, there was an information desk and they helped us get to an ATM machine, and then got us on the train, after showering us with maps and brochures on things to do and buy in Hong Kong. A quick side note. We had a Lonely Planet Southeast Asia, but we had left our Lonely Planet China behind. Laura was a little scared about diving into a new place without our trusty guidebook, but then, she looked in our Southeast Asia book, and there was Hong Kong. Why? Our guidebook was from 1996, before China took over Hong Kong! Ha! And all this time Gail and Vince gave us a hard time for using such an old book. One section of the Lonely Planet always gives recommendations on what to bring. This was the only thing it said about Hong Kong, "Bring money, and lots of it."
Get this, they built a new airport outside of the main island. Hong Kong is a series of islands off the coast of China, something we didn't know. Anyway, they built this beautiful new airport and they ran the train from the center of Hong Kong right to the airport. We got off the airplane, and twenty dollars later (around 150 Hong Kong Dollars), we were speeding off toward the city. In the train, there was a little video screen on the back of each chair and you could check weather, news, current flight arrival and departure summaries, and there was also travel information there. As Mark Decker would say, it was crisp! And there was a lady on the train who spoke English, and a map showing us where we were. We got off the train, and got a taxi and it took us to the YWCA, Garden View Hotel, right in the center of town. The taxi driver said that there was an extra fee for bags, and we thought he was just milking us, but later, we found out he told us the truth. A truthful taxi driver, no way! Kind of like a travel agent that helps you travel. Crazy.
Our room opened up to a full view of the city. Skyscrapers filled the air, and some of them even changed color. It was glorious! We went out and ate at Dan Ryan's, in this big mall, after calling Mark's friend, Tom Gordon. Tom had just come back from a Christmas visit in the States, and he and his wife and family were jet-lagged out, but he still was going to show us around the next day. What a guy! Going into Dan Ryan's was like going into a Chili's on a Friday night in the Bay Area. White upper- middle class workers were there, slamming brewski's and talking about stocks. We ate one of the best cheeseburger's we've ever had. Not just the best cheeseburger in Asia, no, one of the best cheeseburger's in the world! And right in the middle of Hong Kong! We went to bed, and I was still feeling a little sick from India. All I wanted was a doughnut! The next morning, I slept way in, and woke around eleven, feeling sick. Laura had gotten up earlier and had scrounged us some food, orange juice, bagels, and a doughnut for me. What a wife I have! She had found the food court in the basement of the posh shopping mall just a few blocks from our hotel. It was even more luxurious than the one in Bangkok. No fresh bagels in Bangkok!
One of the things we had to do was ride the people mover. It's a series of outdoor, covered escalators that take you from harbor up to the hillside & back. On our way to the people mover, we walked through the garden where the Garden View get it's name. We look over some flowers, and then, pow, we see a whole flock of pink flamingos! What's this? We look over there, and there is a crocodile pond! Over there are monkeys, and over there, huge Orangutans. There is a free zoo in the park next to our hotel, and so we perused the gardens, looked at the animals who looked well fed, and healthy, some of the healthiest looking animals we've seen in Asia.
The city was alive and thumping, it was Saturday afternoon, and time to shop. We rode the escalator up the hill and then walked back to the mall where we had eaten dinner to meet Tom Gordon. We met him, and we went to his favorite electronics shop in that mall, where he does all of his buying. There we spoke with the nicest retail clerk in all of creation, and walked out with a brand new Sony digital camera, a portable Panasonic CD-RW, and a whole bevy of accoutrements. We spent the afternoon with Tom at a coffee shop, hearing about his life. He had come to Hong Kong on a whim and has become very successful, but now was thinking about returning to Boston. As day turned night, we headed to Kublai Kahn's with Tom and a bunch of his friends. We've had Mongolian BBQ before, in Santa Clara, but that was six bucks, all you can eat, with the atmosphere of a greasy spoon. This was posh Mongolian BBQ, and Tom ordered a milkshake to start off with. I thought, "How saucy!" But he said that they had the best milkshakes around. They did. Who knew? Like Mark Decker, Tom's tastes were impeccable. I had Mongolian BBQ, and ate a bunch of ostrich meat.
After the BBQ, we thanked Tom profusely. He got us a great price on our new gear, and he helped us decide what to do the next day. We woke up, ate breakfast in our room to save some money, but then hit the streets again. We wandered around downtown, but Dan Ryan's had been so like home, we couldn't resist. We went there for lunch and had nachos! Most of all, we both miss Mexican food. We weren't going to try it, but we trusted Dan. We got too much food, but we were in Hong Kong. It was expected that we would spend lots of money and overeat. Which we did. After lunch we grabbed the MTR, the subway. Instead of the Asian accented voice saying the stops, it was a crisp, British woman who would say, "Thank you for using the MTR." Crisp! We got on a double-decker bus and took it over the hill to the other side of the island, to Stanley. It was kind of like Hong Kong's patpong area, sans prostitutes & just lots of fake designer clothes and stuff. There was a beach there, but the weather was chilly, so no one swam, just walked around shopping. Getting to Stanley was like riding a roller coaster. We had been told to ride on the top level, up at the front. We did just that, and used our new camera to take pictures. I found some clothes in Stanley that fit, and Laura found a nice sweater set. We had no warm clothes, and Paris was going to be chilly!
We grabbed the bus back to Central Hong Kong, and then got on the Star Ferry to go to the other island, or it might have been the mainland. At any rate, on the other side, you could see the skyline of Central Hong Kong in all it's glory. Magnificent! Buildings holding up neon signs for every high-tech company you could think of, all glowing like the candles on Bill Gates' birthday cake. The lights from the signs and the buildings painted the water in a garish celebration of money, commerce, wealth and splendor. All for us normal Joes to see. We went to a very mediocre Chinese food restaurant on the other side of the harbor, but we were hungry and tired, and we still had to pack before our early flight back the next morning. We rode the ferry back and grabbed a cab home.
The next morning we got up early to catch the free shuttle back to the train station that would take us to the airport. In order to catch the free shuttle, we had to go to a posh hotel and pretend we were guests who had just checked out, so we flashed our new digital camera around and talked about stock. We fit in nicely. One of the nicest things about being of European decent in Asia is that you are taken for royalty just by the color of your skin. If we were Chinese, dressed in our travel clothes, they wouldn't have been so lenient to let us wander around. On the bus back to the train station, we met an American man working as a consultant to the airlines. He spilled hundred dollars out of his pockets when he shook our hands, and he smelled like old silver-dollars, highly polished. He gave us the skinny on airports all over the world, on airlines all over the world, and was just an interesting old, capitalist. He said that we wouldn't believe how much cargo is shipped out of Hong Kong. He also said what we said, that airports in the States were years behind, and that American's reluctance to use public mass transit will mean our doom, choking to death on the fumes of our SUV's. DIA, for example, is a brand new airport that was built in the last few years. Is there a train connecting DIA to Denver? No, the taxi companies and car rental agencies fought against it. So you have this gorgeous airport, miles outside of civilization, and they can clear the runways of snow, but not the roads to the airport. It is insanity. The rich guy also said that O'Hare in New York is a disgrace. No mass transit. I pity those brave enough to try and travel in the U.S. In some ways, no, in most ways, India is easier than the U.S. if you don't want to rent a car.
The best part, the very pinnacle of our Hong Kong experience was this. We arrived at the train station to catch the train back to the airport. We checked our bags there, right there, at the train station. Instead of having to rush, there were airline representatives right there, and they confirmed our seat, checked our luggage, and we rode the train onto the airport. The very essence of crispness! Now, if we could only get the rest of the world to be as efficient as Hong Kong. For that, we'd need to spread the wealth around a little bit. Perhaps a more global market can create opportunities for this division of wealth. Did I just write that? Could it be that this liberal minded fellow is actually for globalization? Maybe it was just Hong Kong rubbing off on me.
We flew back to Bangkok, and thus ended
our Hong Kong trip. The pictures below were our first pictures
we took with the new digital camera!
Laura looking pretty in a Hong Kong's central park, the red of the poinsetta's was for the coming Chinese New Year
Across the water, the lights of commerce shine and shine brightly
If I were a painter, I would call this, "Neon Aaron"
A view of the Far East, back from Stanley, over the the sea and clouds, the land of the sun
Video Clip - Hey, Laura, what did you do in Hong Kong?